There was no lack of careful friends, who warned Adam, but he answered them angrily, so they learned to be silent.
Florette had now grown gay again, and sometimes sang like a joyous bird.
Seven years elapsed, and during the summer of the eighth a scattered troop of soldiers came to the city and obtained admission.

They were quartered under the arches of the town-hall, but many also lay in the smithy, for their helmets, breast-plates and other pieces of armor required plenty of mending.

The ensign, a handsome, proud young fellow, with a dainty moustache, was Adam's most constant customer, and played very kindly with Ulrich, when Florette appeared with him.

At last the young soldier departed, and the very same day Adam was summoned to the monastery, to mend something in the grating before the treasury.
When he returned, Florette had vanished; "run after the ensign," people said, and they were right.

Adam did not attempt to wrest her from the seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff that is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand fibres, and to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it has taken root, and with it life itself.